Alvares Rohan D A, Szulc Daniel A, Cheng Hai-Ling M
Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Translational Biology and Engineering Program, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Sci Rep. 2017 Nov 14;7(1):15493. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-15732-8.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides superior resolution of anatomical features and the best soft tissue contrast, and is one of the predominant imaging modalities. With this technique, contrast agents are often used to aid discrimination by enhancing specific features. Over the years, a rich diversity of such agents has evolved and with that, so has a need to systematically sort contrast agents based on their efficiency, which directly determines sensitivity. Herein, we present a scale to rank MRI contrast agents. The scale is based on analytically determining the minimum detectable concentration of a contrast agent, and employing a ratiometric approach to standardize contrast efficiency to a benchmark contrast agent. We demonstrate the approach using several model contrast agents and compare the relative sensitivity of these agents for the first time. As the first universal metric of contrast agent sensitivity, this scale will be vital to easily assessing contrast agent efficiency and thus important to promoting use of some of the elegant and diverse contrast agents in research and clinical practice.
磁共振成像（MRI）能提供卓越的解剖结构分辨率和最佳的软组织对比度，是主要的成像方式之一。使用这种技术时，造影剂常被用于通过增强特定特征来辅助鉴别。多年来，这类造影剂种类丰富多样，因此也需要根据其效率对造影剂进行系统分类，而效率直接决定了灵敏度。在此，我们提出一种对MRI造影剂进行排名的量表。该量表基于分析确定造影剂的最低可检测浓度，并采用比率法将造影效率标准化至一种基准造影剂。我们使用几种模型造影剂演示了该方法，并首次比较了这些造影剂的相对灵敏度。作为造影剂灵敏度的首个通用指标，该量表对于轻松评估造影剂效率至关重要，因此对于在研究和临床实践中推广使用一些精巧多样的造影剂具有重要意义。
